Some people think metallurgists know how to turn lead to gold. This elusive transformation is actually possible, though outrageously expensive. More on that later.
If you're a manufacturer, there is an affordable way to turn problems to profits through metallurgy.
Are you tired of high product costs, product delays, and manufacturing quality issues that reduce profits? None of these have to be a fact of life.
Many problems are related to the metals used in products. These problems can be transformed to profits by applying the metallurgical engineering approach. Unlike trying to turn lead to gold, the transformation from problem to profit is not expensive. In fact the ROI can be huge.
Here are a few examples of how metallurgical engineering can be applied to increase profits.
Here are three case studies of transforming problems to profits - turning lead to gold.
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So, why do the problems persist? One big reason is a critical piece of engineering expertise is missing from many engineering teams – metallurgical engineering expertise.
Unfortunately, many companies don’t have materials engineers on staff. Instead, engineers with expertise in other engineering fields make decisions and try to solve problems that involve metals. These are skilled engineers, but they have little or no training in materials science and their expertise is not in materials selection, materials testing and analysis, and the effects of use and processing on materials properties and performance.
Because of this knowledge and experience gap, metallurgical engineering is not considered as an approach for gaining a competitive advantage.
This deficiency constrains design, manufacturing, and sourcing decisions and hampers efforts to meet product schedules, reduce costs, and quickly fix quality problems.
Applying metallurgical engineering is a powerful approach for transforming problems to profits. As a matter of fact, the impacts are sometimes transformative.
There is a way to turn lead to gold. The problem is that it's not a chemical reaction, like mixing an acid and a base to get water and a salt.
It's a nuclear reaction. There are only a few ways for nuclear reactions to occur. One is on stars, where light elements are transformed to heavier elements.
On earth, there's another way. It involves a particle accelerator and lead foil. In an accelerator, neutrons or protons are accelerated to near light speed. When the accelerated particles are aimed at lead foil, they crash into the nuclei of the lead atoms. If the collisions result in three protons being ejected from the lead, the lead becomes gold. The only problem with this approach is that it costs a few billion dollars to build a particle accelerator and very small amounts of gold are created - much less than 1 gram. So, the cost is over $1,000,000,000 per ounce of gold created. Sorry!!
Finally, we offer metallurgy consulting to help with design and manufacturing decisions and problems. If you need help, let's talk for 15 minutes. Use this brief form to get started.
Michael Pfeifer, Ph.D., P.E. is President of Industrial Metallurgists and a metallurgical engineering consultant with more than 30 years of experience in product design, manufacturing, failure analysis, and metallurgy training. He helps clients worldwide solve design and manufacturing problems and is the author of Materials Enabled Designs.
